The Former Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has said that the proposed contributory pension scheme would be the beginning of sharp cuts in the number, salaries, and pensions of State employees and teachers.
Dr. Isaac told a press conference here on Tuesday that the Chief Minister’s claim, articulated in an article on the subject, was meant only to mislead the employees and teachers. The contentions in the article were those that had been proved hollow during a debate on the Supplementary Demands for Grants in the Assembly. There was also no comparison between the contributory pension scheme and the pension fund for university employees mooted by the previous LDF government, he said.
The CPI(M) leader pointed out that successive pay commissions arrived at salaries of employees and teachers after factoring in the potential pension of the employees concerned. Going by the Chief Minister’s argument that the contributory pension scheme was being contemplated as the pension payment burden was increasingly unbearable, it would have to be assumed that the government would also contemplate slashing the salaries of employees. The government should clarify whether it would cut the salaries because the wage bill was on the rise, he said.
Pension, he said, could not be seen as a burden but as a right of the employees for having served the government. If the contributory pension scheme was implemented, it would result in the pension benefits available to the employees getting halved, he added.
